When you move into your chosen accommodation and prepare for the start of your first year as a student, you will not think much of it. You will be more preoccupied with Fresher’s week and befriending people. Your room will be left aside and long forgotten for the first two weeks spent at university. However, after the excitement wares off and you become aware of the many responsibilities hanging on your shoulders, you will start thinking “When I was home, I did not have to deal with this”. You may wonder what “this” actually means. It actually refers to doing laundry, cleaning your room, cooking for yourself, polishing your shoes, the list goes on…

This article intends to help you with some of these issues by making these activities more enjoyable. It will also stop you from thinking about home and prevent you from getting homesick.

Clean up day

If you are one of those people who cannot do any study unless everything is in its place or because you get distracted from studying and end up doing laundry, then keeping your room clean on a weekly basis may be your answer. The best part of this is that if you clean up everything once then all you will have to do is maintain it. Best way to do this is to choose a day and a time, preferably during morning, and for half an hour use your hoover and give everything a quick wipe down. To make it more fun and avoid either getting bored or giving up, mix this with some music playing in the background and practice your dance moves at the same time. Make a ritual out of this and you will not have to deal with a messy room ever again.

Laundry

Blacks, whites, colours and delicates… You may find it difficult to wash your laundry if your wool jumper is in black while a cardigan is in orange and you cannot really wash your black cashmere jumper with your black jeans either. This issue may turn out to be a nightmare if you ruin your clothes and have nothing to wear.

The secret is the following; read the labels of your clothing and then separate them into piles – darks (black, grey, dark blue), colours (orange, blue, red, green) and whites. Now, any piece of clothing that can be washed at 40 C can also be washed at 30 C, so wash at the lowest temperature. You may also have a small number of clothes which have some special requirements such as hand wash, do not tumble dry… Make sure you take these warnings into consideration.

Last but not least, remember to wash towels and bedding sets separately from your clothes. This may seem really complicated, but if you pay attention to these rules you will get into a routine and will not find it such a bother. This is the same as with cleaning, if you invest more time in these activities at the beginning you will spend less time on them in the future.

Cooking

If you are not a master chef you may encounter some difficulties in finding what to eat while at home. As eating out is not always an option you will have to start cooking. The best advice would be to cook together with someone as it may get boring and frustrating when too much time is being spent in the kitchen and not outdoors.

Try experimenting with different kinds of foods with someone else, who may have more or less expertise than you in cooking. This may be a good solution rather than getting annoyed with your food and ending up ordering pizza.

As you can see, the impression that you had an easier life back at home can quickly dissipate if you impose some discipline in your life.

Soon you will become a domestic God or Godess and embrace the independence that University has brought you!